Teens at Greatest Risk for PTSD Identified

"A large, epidemiologic study showed that the strongest vulnerability factors for PTSD included female sex, events involving interpersonal violence, and pre-existing anxiety and mood disorders before exposure to the worst traumatic stressor.

"Effective interventions have been developed to prevent the onset of PTSD in PTE-exposed adults and, more recently, in PTE-exposed children and adolescents. Our findings suggest that these interventions would most usefully be targeted at youths who are victims of interpersonal  violence and those with pre-existing fear and stress disorders," the authors, led by Katie A. McLaughlin, PhD, Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, in Massachusetts, write...."

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/809173

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